Ted McCollum of Texas AgriLife is one of the top beef cattle specialists in the region. Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays caught up with McCollum during a recent presentation he gave on the subject of figuring out the right size of cows to have for your beef cow herd. He says over the decades we have seen cattle bred to fit the full range of the size spectrum. Currently though, more moderately built cows seem to be the norm, but McCollum suggests that each individual ranch should have its own optimized standard.
“You can argue what’s the optimum cow size from a number of different standpoints, but the way I look at it,” he explained, “if you own a ranch, you bought property. You’re looking at every turn back to that investment which is returned back to the land area that you own.”
McCollum says the question then becomes, ‘What size of cow may optimize my returns back to the land?’
“I’m not looking necessarily what’s the optimum size in terms of weaning weight per cow, but weaning weight per acre of land that I own,” McCollum said. “In my opinion, size is not really a matter because what we’re going to do is adjust the number of cows per unit of land area - but based on forage production and size also.”
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